Help me with research

Post by **Dale** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:25 pm

My google skills, sharp as I think they are, are failing me. Here's what I need. People say: Youth drinking is not as big of a problem in Europe because families tolerate alcohol use more in their homes. I'm not sure I believe that's true and I'm looking for DATA about this. Like, data comparing alcohol abuse and alcoholism among youth in the USA vs. Western Europe. That kind of deal. Don't be hurt: I'm not looking for opinions. I'm looking for studies.

Who's a better google jockey than I am?

Dale

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:37 pm

I'm no google jockey, but here's a link to a group that studies alcohol and drug use among students in Europe: European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs.

Here's another link (to a US gov site): U.S. Teens in Our World (Chapter Five: Smoking and Alcohol Use).

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:39 pm

Just off the top, I remember reading how youth alcoholism in Ireland was the worst in Europe. Kids are leaving college because they have been hospitalised with cirrhosis of the liver. Researching this may give you leads into articles that have quotes to studies that may lead you into the sort of stuff you are looking for. Just a thought.

djm

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:40 pm

Try this:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en ... ing+Europe

and this:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en ... h+drinking

Best wishes,
Jerry

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:41 pm

Dale,
I just went to the National Library of Medicine web site, typed in "youth alcohol consumption in Europe" and I got 1747 hits. Of course, not all of those will be useful. In case you have never used it before the url is
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed I have used it a lot in the past. The site is quite sophistocated and has tools for some really advanced searching but I always got what I needed without learning the fancy stuff.
Mike

herbivore12 · Post by **herbivore12** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:49 pm

Here's a paper from the DoJ discussing alcoholism in youth in the U.S. and in Europe. Didn't read the whole thing, but maybe it'll help with references as well as numbers:

http://www.udetc.org/documents/CompareDrinkRate.pdf

Good luck!

(Looks like the upshot here is that kids in European countries report drinking more often and more heavily than kids in the U.S.)

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 2:16 pm

ANECDOTE ALERT: Nothing said here is meant to add to the conversation, I just felt it an appropriate place to share an experience of mine.

I go to a college that is fairly infamous for "partying." I, however, being an upstanding and discerning citizen, participate in no such activity. I chose the college because the academic environment suits me. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of alcoholism among the student body. And should one arrive at class early, a myriad of surprising and disturbing discussions can be overheard. On three separate occassions, one of my classmates has raggedly entered the room, stating that they spent the night in the emergency room with a friend/roommate. The unchanging reaction to this statement is, "Oh, alcohol poisoning?" as if this were the most reasonable answer possible. On two of the three occassions, this has been the correct reason the person has been in the emergency room.

--Congratulations, who has never tasted alcohol and does not go to parties, feeling his time is better spent studying and practicing and otherwise being a prude.

missy · Post by **missy** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:07 pm

hey Congrats - my son is in the Navy, and he STILL doesn't drink! He just doesn't like the taste of alcohol, and he doesn't like the feeling of not being in control. It threw him for a loop just to be on stuff they used when they pulled his wisdom teeth out.

sorry, Dale, don't have any articles you can quote - but I do know that drinking is a REAL problem in the high schools in this area, much more then drugs.

rebl_rn · Post by **rebl_rn** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:56 pm

WHO's website has the Global Alcohol Database - I didn't look at it closely, so I don't know if it has what you're looking for.

There's also the Global Status Report on Alcohol 2004 on their site.

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:18 am

Dale, the Metro paper today had a front page article about drinking in the UK, saying that Britons are the biggest binge drinkers in Europe. It's about young adults, not teenagers...I'm not sure which age range you're looking for.

The article states that health effects are being seen more often and at younger ages, compares statistics from 1991 to 2004 (nearly double the number of alcohol related deaths) ...actually, it's not too long at all and the office is dead today so I can type it for you. It's from the July 19th 2006 <a href="http://www.metro.co.uk">Metro paper</a> and the article is by Sarah Hills:

You're in your twenties or thirties, you enjoy a drink and tend to overdo it when you hit the booze. You think it won't really harm you because you're young ... well, you're wrong. Disturbing new figures show alcohol-related deaths have doubled in just ten years - and the average age of those dying has plummeted.

Battle of the bottle

The number of Britons dying from alcohol abuse has doubled in 13 years - and binge drinking is being blamed. There are now more than 8,000 drink-related deaths a year, up from about 4,000 in 1991, new Government figures show. The most dramatic increase is among men in their 30s and 40s, but women's deaths have also risen at an alarming rate.

Alcohol Concern said: 'Alcohol liver disease takes a long time to develop, so if somebody is dying of it in their mid-30s, it's probably as a result of them drinking heavily throughout their 20s. We've seen a rise in alcohol consumption in recent decades. This is one of the most serious health problems facing Britain and needs to be tackled urgently.'

The number of alcohol-related deaths shot up from 4,144 in 1991 (6.9 per 100,000 population) to 8,380 in 2004 (13 per 100,000), according to the Office for National Statistics. In 1991, the alcohol death rate for men only was 9.1 per 100,000, and for women five per 100,000. Two years ago, the figures were 17.7 for men and 8.5 for women. Drink-related hospital admissions were also at a record 183,400 last year. And a third of men and a quarter of women aged 16-24 drank double the recommended level of units, researchers found.

Richard Kramer, of social care group Turning Point, said it was seeing more young people with 'the sort of liver damage you would normally associate with someone a lot older'. 'Today's young binge-drinkers are the problem drinkers of tomorrow,' he added. 'Excessive drinking can stack up problems including alcohol dependency and physical and mental health problems.'

Professor Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Royal College of Physicians' alcohol committee, warned that the figures represented just the tip of the iceberg. He said: 'We are drinking more year on year. This is a warning to young people who are already getting into a culture of heavy and regular drinking.'

The Government spends £217 million a year on alcohol treatment and an extra £15 million has been pledged by 2007/08 to stop alcohol misuse.

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:07 am

It has long been recognised that national average consumption figures can be misleading: right up to the 70s Ireland's per capita consumption looked very moderate, but behind this lay a very substantial temperance movement which preached total abstinence, and disproportionately heavy consumption among some of those who did drink. You therefore need to look beyond the raw stats and try to track down sociological studies of drinking patterns.

From anecdotal knowledge, it's pretty clear that you can't generalise about Europe.

The UK and Ireland have a shared drink culture which goes back to 19th-century attempts by the Protestant ruling classes and the Catholic clergy respectively to eliminate drunkenness in the working classes. It combines largely unsuccessful attempts to curb the problem (restrictive opening hours and licensing laws) with widespread heavy consumption. Youth binge drinking - I suspect far worse than would be encountered anywhere in the US - is a very visible present-day manifestation of the failure of this repressive and reproving culture.

The romance-language countries, Germany and the Benelux countries probably have the most balanced approach, with little repression and no associated guilt, early introduction to moderate drinking in a family environment, and alcohol consumption in the romance countries being associated with convivial meals rather than as a separate activity.

The Nordic countries historically have a Protestant judgemental attitude similar to that of both Protestant Britain and Catholic Ireland, with restrictive rules that encourage binge drinking.

Recent young, single male migrants to Ireland from Central and Eastern Europe also have an unhealthy drink culture, and don't even appear to have begun to internalise the "if you drive don't drink" message that is at least beginning to make some inroads in the indigenous drink culture. There is an alarming mortality rate among them due especially to road accidents.